Fitch downgrades Argentina to ‘restricted default’

Fitch rating agency has officially downgraded Argentina's sovereign debt grade to the category of “restrictive default”, as it considered the country failed to make payment of its Discount bonds on July 30.

The agency downgraded Argentina from “CC” to “RD” and also lowered Discount bonds rating from “CCC” to “D”, arguing Argentina “has not been able to attend payment of Discount bonds and according to Fitch criteria this constitutes a non-completion.”

The announcement follows Standard & Poor's, who yesterday made the same decision after Argentina could not make the 538 million dollar payment on 2005 and 2010 debt swap bonds due to a financial block sanctioned by United States federal court amid the so called “vulture funds” case.